The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. (In French with English
subtitles) directed by Julian Schnabel. When I first heard that
director Julian Schnabel was going to turn a book about a man who
had a massive stroke was left with no control over any part of his
body except his active and fertile mind, a successful editor of a
major magazine in Paris, I could not imagine how it would look on
film, our most visual medium. I am here to tell you that Julian
Schnabel made it happen. Yes, he had the help of a fine screenplay
by Ronald Harwood, based on the book by
Jean Dominique Bauby, and
understated acting, that allowed the movie riveting, deep-felt
emotion without the usual bathos. More importantly, for me, is
Julian Schnabel’s use of film’s language as a medium of expression
rather than as a means simply to record a story. The opening
sequence is grand, almost dance-like, with fluid photography,
delicate movement and what one might imagine as the inside of a
person’s mind where communication with the outside world, once that
person’s strong suit, is now seemingly impossible. It is as if
Schnabel steeped himself in ideas from German expressionism, once a
dominant force in cinema during the first third of the 20th Century.
Most of the movie takes place in a hospital bed occupied by Bauby
(Mathieu Amalric.) His body has no working parts except one eye that
he is able to blink. He still has a richly creative brain, and,
though frustrated by his condition, he overcomes his stasis by
fighting to tell his story. How does he do it? This becomes the
movie. Doctors and physical therapists figure a way for him to
“speak” using the alphabet and his blinking eye. We watch him as he
blinks to the dedicated, lovingly entreaties of his physical
therapists and the young woman assigned to capture his thoughts one
letter, one blink at a time for each letter of each word, for the
book he is writing. There are the requisite flashbacks to Bauby’s
early life so we, the audience, understand what he and those who
love him lost. In the end, we all gain, however, because of his
heroism and his refusal to give up in the face of surviving a
desperate situation. Soon after the book is published, Jean
Dominique Bauby dies. Despite his death, we are richer for being a
part of his life. Thanks must go to Julian Schnabel for bringing us
this film.
.................................................................................................................................................................... Persepolis. (In French with English subtitles.) Directed by
Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapic.
I thought I knew everything
there was to know about life in Iran, or at least what I assumed was
life for an average person. Then along comes “Persepolis,” a small,
lovely, moving film about a young Iranian girl and her struggle to
be a person in the narrow, closed universe that from afar we know as
Iran. It is a film filled with fear, desperation and alienation in a
society seemingly gone mad because of its orthodoxy. I am not sure
there is any hope in the film, but there are choices that the young
woman makes and we, as viewers, must go along with those choices
because there seems to be no other way to survive. Based on a
graphic novel, a genre I usually ignore because I feel the stories
and how they are told, are too simplistic, the producers made the
right decision by allowing the illustrations to come to life as
illustrations, and not as live action. In mostly stark black and
white with tones of washed gray, the film looks at times as if it is
a watercolor under stress. That look only gives the film its
overriding sense of realism. I am not sure how to categorize this
film. Is it a cartoon, as we have come expect a cartoon to look? Is
it an illustrated movie? Is it an artistic work requiring a new
definition? Is there another designation still to come? Whatever the
film may be, “Persepolis” is worth seeing. Take the kids, especially
the teenagers so they can get a sense of what a tough life is really
like in a country governed by a repressive regime. It is probably
the family film of the year for its nuance, for its heart and for
its ability to feel for people who are not like us who live under
tension and in fear.
.................................................................................................................................................................... Beaufort. (In Hebrew
with English subtitles.) Directed by Joseph Cedar. Written by Joseph
Cedar and Ron Leshem. After seeing Beaufort, I thought of some
powerful war films and anti-war films such as “All Quiet on the
Western Front,” “Paths of Glory,” and “Gallipoli.” Think too, of WW
II American rah-rah films such as “Wake Island,” “The Sands of Iwo
Jima,” “Guadalcanal” and “The Story of G.I Joe.” Then add the
Vietnam War movies, most of which came after the war, such as
“Platoon,” “Full Metal Jacket” and even “Apocalypse Now,” that
swollen mess of an anti-war film. Now add to your list one of the
best modern day war, or, if you will, anti-war films, “Beaufort.”
The film is about the last days of “an Israeli army unit’s tense,
painful withdrawal from a strategic 12th century fortress” in
Lebanon in 2000 after eighteen years of occupation. For those who
don’t know it, boredom in war is a soldier’s worst enemy. The time
spent between combat is difficult, especially when men are in a
defensive position in fortified underground bunkers and between
concrete barriers high on a mountaintop, as they are in this film.
Gaining territory is the aim of war. It is what battles are about.
Holding that territory beyond its need is either folly, or
stupidity. Losing conquered territory, as often happens, is usually
a waste of men and material. The Israeli troops in “Beaufort” are
under constant shelling and interestingly, they in turn, never fire
back. Not one shot. Not one pulled trigger. Men die. Men argue. Men
wonder why they are where they are. Much of the film is either in
the dark or takes place underground in the reinforced submarine-like
bunker where the troopers live. The color is deep contrast, and
washed out just enough that it sometimes made me think I was
watching a film in black and white with a gray scale that went
beyond the harshness that pure black and white brings. The movie
occasionally sags, but when it does, in retrospect, it only adds to
the sense of futility, and our understanding of it, that the members
of the IDF – Israeli Defense Force – face every day. We, as viewers
get to experience along with the soldiers, their boredom, their
frustration and their fear of the unknown. That alone is worth the
price of admission.
........................................................................................................................
At NBC News for 35 years, Ron Steinman was bureau chief
in Saigon, Hong Kong and London, was a senior producer on Today and wrote
and produced for Sunday Today. At ABC News Productions, he produced
and wrote documentaries for A&E, TLC, Discovery, Lifetime and the
History Channel. He has a Peabody, a National Headliner award, a
National Press Club award, a International Documentary Festival Gold
Camera Award, two American Women in Radio & Television awards and
has been nominated for five Emmy's. He is a partner in
Douglas/Steinman Productions, whose latest documentary, "Luboml: My
Heart Remembers," aired on PBS' WLIW/21 and the History Channel in
Israel, April 29, 2003. He is the author of, "The Soldiers 'Story",
"Women in Vietnam," and most recently, "Inside Television's First
War: A Saigon Journal," University of Missouri Press, 2002.
Mo
